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The Good, The Bad & The Verdict: Star Wars – The Last Jedi

Hey guys, it’s me here and, as is sometimes the case, I’ve got another review of a popular film for you. Tonight, many around the globe are seeing the latest offering in George Lucas’s epic space opera series that he sold to the Mouse Monopoly House for an ungodly sum of money.

Recently, the series has taken a few hits (Lord and Miller being fired, Trevorrow walking away from the next film, etc.), but, ever being the recent optimist, I went into the Rian Johnson helmed 8th film in the Skywalker Saga with a curious eye towards what would happen. Would it be a re-hash of similar story beats from Empire? Would it be the cocaine filled insanity of a studio executive who assumed the IP would get fresh reviews from critics tainted by masturbatory nostalgia for the past and buffoons who didn’t know any better? Well…here’s my thoughts.

The Good

More so than any other film in the series, this one is at least honest about the flaws inherent in the basic structure of the universe. Are the Jedi pieces of shit who raised child soldiers, backed an exclusionary junk science to exclude people from their ranks and responsible for untold amounts of suffering and horror by failing to stop Darth Sidious from taking over? Yep! And this movie pays tribute to that absurdity. So much for being the “hope for the galaxy” in prior films. In addition, characters in the movie actually admit it is silly how the whole galaxy is mired in a cycle of violence. I won’t say where it happens, but it is a nice rebuke to the “bad guys take over, good guys defeat them, bad guys rise again and so on and so on” inherent in this series and EU.

The Bad

In spite of that growth, the film is undone by nearly every other decision made by the director and the studio executives who undoubtedly overruled him at many points in the story. Too much humor is present (Yes, I know other movies had jokes, but this reads like a bad SNL sketch.) and seems like it was written for a Family Guy parody, a scene with the gone-too-soon Carrie Fisher breaks the basic rules established by prior movies on what humans are vulnerable to and seems more at home in a comic book film than a Star Wars movie, Luke is a lazy and grumpy old man drinking alien breast milk and Snoke is an Iron Man 3 Mandarin level “fuck you” to loyal fans.

The Verdict

I wanted to like this movie. Really, I had high hopes – Johnson directed some great films and television prior -, but the honest moments which are a welcome exploration and departure from cliché are buried under a piss stain parody script that shits on so much built up before it. This series has a new contender for the worst entry in its library of films and related media items.

Actually, scratch that, it can take the crown. Avoid this movie, it’s not worth your money.